Forum - View topic

Answerman - Why Are Some Old Anime Never Re-released?

Hi. It meeee.

I worked on both the CPM and Discotek releases. I’ve never heard of a 16mm print.

Nyren wrote:

SpacemanHardy wrote: Nyren wrote: I noticed that too. I haven't watched that series yet, but I have had an interest in it and could find it nowhere. Now I'm curious if there are any distributors that have the Fate series and Persona movies at decent prices. I know MVM put Fate/Zero out in the UK for a pretty reasonable price. And All the Anime seems to be selling the Persona 3 movies for pretty cheap. It's like I just struck anime gold! Baccano on Blu-Ray! Gurren Lagann! Kill la Kill with dub! The complete collection of the original Berserk! They even have Unlimited Blade Works at a good price! Was about to praise them for having Garden of Sinners, but it's just the DVD set. That's a series that deserves nothing less than blu-ray. The only question I have is if any of these UK/EU or AU releases are censored, or if they're uncensored like US releases tend to be.

It's really quite rare for UK releases of anime to be censored at all these days, as long as it's not actually hentai.

From memory none of those mentioned are censored (I've got Gurren, Beserk and Baccano), even Higschool DxD is uncensored which surprised me.
They also recently did GITS:SAC with reworked subs, which has been sat taunting me on the desk for a month.

The thing to watch is that from memory all of ATA's releases are region coded for the UK (sometimes UK/Aus).

It'd be nice if copyrighted works passing into the public domain eventually was a thing that still happened.

Out of curiosity, was the video of both releases based on commercial LD copies? What was the nature and condition of the materials provided to you from Japan?

And it's nice to see someone else discover the UK/Australia route for certain titles. I've dipped into both avenues to pull an end-around on Aniplex of America and to pick up a few titles that inexplicably remain unlicensed over here. In general the UK tends to be the more practical option, as depending on which option you choose (like Amazon UK), the shipping can be very reasonable.

They still work on region free players though right? I use my PS4 and Xbox One for blu-rays, and to my knowledge both are region free players.

MarshalBanana wrote:

A VHS only show that I feel really needs a Blu-Ray re-release, is Combustible Campus Guardress.

Guardress isn't VHS-only, as there was an LD release to alongside it, but the point of this OVA needing a re-release of any sort remains true.

I've heard it falls into the "creator is difficult to work with" category, but that could just be long standing rumor.

I think it was once stated, years ago when DIscotek first rescued A-Ko, that the 16mm print was too small to really get any sort of good remastering out of (remember, it's almost literally half the size of the 35mm print), so they just went with the laserdisc master, which allowed for at least some sort of visible improvement.

Macron One wrote:

Out of curiosity, was the video of both releases based on commercial LD copies? What was the nature and condition of the materials provided to you from Japan?

Thanks for the kind words. Both the 2002 CPM DVD and the Discotek disc are from the Japanese special edition laserdisc. They are LDs so they’re full of analog noise, but the transfer was an early digital one, so it’s better than many others of similar vintage. We were able to make it 24p without much difficulty. The second disc also suffered some laser rot. Both discs have been substantially de-noised (the Discotek release a lot better than the CPM one) and that took out most of the rot, but you can probably see some of it in the last 15 minutes of the film.

Lord Geo wrote:

MarshalBanana wrote: A VHS only show that I feel really needs a Blu-Ray re-release, is Combustible Campus Guardress. Guardress isn't VHS-only, as there was an LD release to alongside it, but the point of this OVA needing a re-release of any sort remains true.

I'm glad that two other people are fans of Bakuen Campus Guardress, considering that I don't think it even had any release outside Japan. I've heard it falls into the "creator is difficult to work with" category, but that could just be long standing rumor.

I know of at least one show that has never seen release outside of VHS because its two producers hate each other and refuse to do anything that would enrich the other. There are, I am told, dozens more.

LegitPancake wrote:

So which one does Eva fall under?

A popular rumor is the asking price for an Eva license is too high. There was an Answerman a couple years back that talked about why a series might not be licensed in North America. The series has gotten a blu ray release in Japan however

Unfortunately The EVA movies and TV series are out of print, we would love to be able to renew them, but this simply isn't possible until at the very earliest after the final renewal movie is released. We appreciate everyone's patience, we too want to be able to release these.